I personally think artists/labels are simply going to have to get used to earning a lot less money than they were in the 80’s to 90’s. A lot of labels/artists act like it’s the norm to be earning thousands of dollars per month from their music but this kind of money is a relatively new thing, in the grand scheme of things.
Don’t get me wrong; I was invovled in the dnb scene a few years back so I know how much work goes into writing music and touring. But did I ever expect to earn £1000+ per hour for playing a few records? No! If I do a 9-5 in the studio, 5 days a week, why do I deserve to be earning more than, say, a doctor earns?
The music industry in the 80’s and 90’s was nuts… way too much money being made and everyone got greedy. Now that we have an illegal and easily accessible alternative (torrents), the public has chosen with their wallets… they don’t believe that the music is worth what the labels were charging a few years back.
Now, companies like Spotify and Netflix have got it right. Charge an annual flat fee for as much music/films as you like. Both these services have significantly cut down my torrenting activities. Yes, it’s true that the artists/labels/studios don’t earn as much but then did they ever really deserve to be earning as much as before? Besides, the cheaper Spotify/Netflix become, the more people sign up to them… a million people paying a $ per month is still better than 10 people paying $10 per month.
And that’s not even mentioning the fact that it’s pretty hard to pirate a live performance. Artists need to accept that music production is simply a form of marketing. Get your music out there and make a living from performing it live. I know I made a LOT more money from dj’ing than I ever made from releasing the few records I had out.
Milo where did you find they are earning less money. the big companies are making more than ever. Artists are making more than ever, its easier and cheaper than ever to distribute music. all thats happened is they have not passed there saving onto the end users
really? I’d be shocked if the major labels are making as much money as they were in the 80’s-90’s.
I was spending around £20-50 per month on music back in the day… now I barely spend that in a year.
A quick google reveals this:
A good example is Subtitles music (a medium sized dnb label). They’ve recently announce that they’re going digital only (as no one is buying their vinyl anymore). The problem with this is that the profit margins in digital are much smaller than vinyl. This is exacerbated by the fact that they’re also not selling as many units as they were, say, 10 years ago.
I use torrents occasionlly to preview albums and if its good i’ll usually buy it. I dont use em for dj music as alot of the time i found the quality was unreliable, some labelled as 320 were often just converted up from lower bitrates.
I think a big problem now is an artist has 1 successful single and the albums wheeled out within the next 2 weeks before anymore singles and you buy the album for £12 or so and find its a bag of shit with 1 or 2 decent tracks and the rest is nothing like the single. Instead of releasing 3 or 4 singles then the album so you have a better feeling of what the artist is like.
milo the world does not end at the borders of USA. Most the record companies are having year on year record profits. This is partly due to the increased westernisation of the world. Music sales in china have shot up, funnily enough along with the sale of apple products. youve even got a company in iraq replicating apple stores.
The big loosers are record stores. HMV in the UK is struggling even though most its compertition has died. But they do stupid things such as there crappy online music store and stupidly high priced vinyl. ok a single used to be £4 and you got 3 or 4 tracks on that, so the shop makes around £2.50 off it. say 30p to make it another 30p to ship it. that leaves us with 90p for 3 or 4 tracks. we now pay 99p for 1 so the profits vs sales have increased by around 400% because of digital music
that’s really interesting… I’ve never heard of this before.
Have you got any links to support this? I’ve always heard that digital unit sales have never matched the heyday of cd/vinyl unit sales from the 80’s and 90’s.
edit: and it’s funny to hear you mention China as being a place where music sales have shot up. Sales couldn’t really have got any worse could they? (considering China’s repuation for being poor on upholding copyright laws)
also the chart below shows total digital/traditional sales of albums vs singles. As you can see, the music industry has been in recession since the beginning of the century:
Now you’re arguing that there is more profit to be made from digital sales. This might be true, but how much of it is going to the labels/artists and how much is going to itunes and spotify?
its really hard to actually get real figures as most of these companies move money around to avoid paying taxes. but i wont go to much into it as I am very anti america (not the people but the ppl who run the goverment) china has got alot better for copywrite so has russia, quite interesting all there schools moved over to linux cuz they where told they had to buy windows licences, that made me chuckle.
btw its not torrents that is destroying music its casset tapes. that is why there was huge lawsuits to get there sale banned,
There is a really good blog post on The Cynical Musician that takes a look at web based distribution from an artist’s point of view: The paradise that should have been
I’m not quite sure what to think about the numbers (and it would be interesting if someone could give som insight on beatport in comparison), but it shows on how money earned via digital sales is distributed
so you’re saying that the charts posted in this thread are inaccurate because companies have started to move money around to avoid taxes? but they’ve only started avoiding tax since the turn of the century? (when sales took a dive)
its flawed tho because label revenue is different for each artist, and again you see from there calc record companies making more money than artists. back in the day when you needed a million pound recording studio there was no now you can setup a decent studio for 20 grand that can put out better quality recordings than back in the 80’s.
Yes artists are getting ripped off cuz thats how the fat cats of the record industry work. A independaNT record label should start there own online store with each artist having a page with there stuff on lets say u buy there album for 10quid, u then get access to a page with hq pics of the artist plus all the instrumentals and accapellas of that album
That may or may not be true but the point of this thread is to discuss whether or not torrents are a good thing for the music industry as a whole. Whether or not its cheaper to record an album nowadays isn’t going to change the fact that downloading music/films clearly has had a noticeable effect on revenue over the past 20 years (if we disregard your unsubstantiated tax evasion theory). Besides, most big bands still record in very expensive studios… a Pro Tools rig costs not much less than a whole bunch of classic analogue preamps. And pro plugins aren’t cheap either.
And I would argue whether recordings made in the 21st century sound better than stuff made in the 60’s to 90’s. It’s certainly louder but my ears prefer dynamics. and less brickwall limiting/compression.
ok the ability is there for it to be better im fully aware of this rubbish that our track needs to be louder. Im pretty certain most hifi’s have a volume knob if the user wants it louder. torrents are not destroying the record industry just like the tape recorder didnt. record companies spin stuff its hard to get sympathy wen you have record profits.
It’s difficult to discuss this properly unless you can back up your points with some facts or sources. Am I being trolled?
As you doubt the legitimacy of the IFPI reports above, let’s go on personal experience instead. My time in the dnb scene suggests the exact oppposite of what you’re saying. For me, releasing a record and not dj’ing would be the fastest path to ruin & collecting a Job Seekers Allowance cheque. Back in the 90’s it wasn’t common for a producer to also be a dj. Nowadays, it’s a mandatory requirement.
My first release sold around 1000 copies on vinyl. This was in 2004. Last week I read that Subtitles are going to stop releasing vinyl because they struggle to sell even 800 records. That’s a ridiculously sad state of affairs… Subtitles is a well respected label with some major artists on their roster. The label owner has categorically stated that digital sales don’t make up for the loss of vinyl sales. Why would they lie? Some sort of marketing strategy? To make people feel sorry for the label so they buy more mp3s? That doesn’t make any sense.
As a punter, I know for a fact that I spend a lot less money on music/films than I used to. Buying the odd track on Beatport isn’t quite the same as buying 4 or 5 albums on cd every month. Spending £5.99 on Netflix every month is nothing compared to the 3 or 4 dvd’s I would buy every month a few years back. You argued that the cost of music production has gotten cheaper. Are you also saying that with the advent of digital technology it’s cheaper to make a Hollywood film as well?
In theory yes its cheaper but in reality people are pushing special effects further and further. However look at the avengers the highest grossing film for a 1st week ever. I think artists are making less money but record companies are making more. DJ’s used to be more important tho they actually made things a hit.
We are both people who love music and have alot of it, so you dont mind a trip to the shop to get that new record, however for alot of people they would have to wait to the weekend then if they got sidetracked wouldnt get it and would forget about it. However with the internet one click you have got it. So its enabled impulse buying 24 hours a day. remember most people only ever owned about 40-50 records
as you can see best selling albums in the uk is all over the place will adels album coming in 5th place from last year, record companies also drop ppl alot quicker they really dont want to put rescources into ppl unless there profits are super high.
back onto topic adel came in 3rd for most pirated album, those torrent obviously destroyed her album sales lol!
remember record companies sell so much other stuff aswell even more than ever. i just had a look at sony music’s public records but so much money going everywhere ul never know how much they make.
But that fact is so skewed though because it doesn’t factor in inflation and how much the average ticket is to go see a movie these days ($10+ dollars at some spots). I’m always hesitant when I see commercials and advertisements using that as a promotional tool because they aren’t giving all the facts.
oh yea for sure I get that, the cost of going to the cinema at least in the UK has raised well above inflation. Same with the music figures if you factor in inflation we are sposed to beleive the record industry is making a 5th of what it did in the 90’s behave.
You also have to look at as I said before the westernisation of the world, more people now have access to western film and music
